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John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 10 blogs containing over 8000 articles with John having written over 4000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 16 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John is co-founder of InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and LinkedIn.

This post is sponsored by Samsung Business. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

We all know how dramatic our lives have changed thanks to technology. Many of us remember the impact a computer in every home had on our lives. Now we’re seeing that same transformation happening as we all start carrying a smartphone in our pocket. Each of these technologies has opened up new worlds of possibilities in our personal lives and also for healthcare. I think we’ll see a similar transformation with the introduction of voice recognition and AI (Artificial Intelligence).

When we start talking about AI, most of us probably think about the movies they’ve seen where AI was on display. Hollywood’s use of AI in movies often makes it so it doesn’t feel very real. However, if you have a smartphone, then you’ve probably used AI. I know my first real experience with AI was on my Samsung Galaxy S3. I remember my wife and I going on a date and we spent the majority of our date asking “Galaxy” various questions. We got surprisingly good answers including easy access to the show times for the movie we ended up seeing.

Most of us have had this type of experience with AI on our smartphone. It’s pretty magical, but I must admit that I didn’t use it that often when it was just on my phone. There were a few cases it was really useful like when I was driving and needed directions to a gas station. The hands-free access to information was extremely powerful, but it wasn’t part of my daily experience. However, that changed for me when I introduced an always on AI solution in my home. Now it’s become a daily part of me and my family’s life.

How does this apply to healthcare? It’s becoming very clear that the home is the healthcare hub of the future. Think about having always on tablets, smart TVs, and other devices positioned throughout your home where you can easily access your health information, medical knowledge, and healthcare providers. That’s powerful. Plus, those devices and attached sensors are starting to easily monitor you, your environment, and your health. This two way connection creates an extremely powerful combination that will change the way we view healthcare.

Certainly there are practical examples of home health services that exist today including monitoring recently discharged patients, monitoring seniors, connecting patients with doctors, and much more. We’re seeing all of these connected home health services happen more and more every day. Just what we’ve already begun to implement will improve the healthcare we provide dramatically. However, we’re just starting to explore what AI and new technologies can do for healthcare. The best is still to come.

How long will it be before we can sit at home and we can ask our tablet or smart TV “Galaxy, how’s my blood pressure doing today?” Or “Galaxy, can you schedule me a telemedicine visit with my doctor to discuss my prescription refill?” Not to mention Galaxy proactively reaching out to you to motivate healthy decision making.

What’s so incredible is that executing these ideas and many more aren’t that farfetched given the powerful technology that exists today. We still need to connect a few dots, but it’s all extremely doable from a technical perspective.

What’s going to be harder is the cultural shift and change of mindset. However, that’s happening already and it will accelerate over time. I’m sure my kids wouldn’t think twice about asking our TV or tablet for a doctor’s appointment and then having the doctor streamed right to the TV or their tablet. They probably wonder why it’s not already possible.

Even while we wait for this more automated AI future, there are still big home health things happening on smartphones and tablets. Each of those things is a building block to this exalted future. I’m ready for Galaxy to see me now. In fact, in some ways he already does. Are you ready?

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